


I look at you out of the corner of my eye

by fullmoon02



Category: Actor RPF
Genre: First Meetings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 16:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmoon02/pseuds/fullmoon02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the dialogue of East Of Eden screentest. (See notes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I look at you out of the corner of my eye

**Author's Note:**

> I strongly suggest that you to watch [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1sLlcarbu4) before reading the fic.

Auditions always made James a little nervous. He loved acting and he felt like he was born to do that. And he took auditions seriously. He wanted the roles he auditioned for and he always wanted to do his best. That way, whether he got the role or not, he could be satisfied with the result because he knew he could not have been any better. The other actors he auditioned with were usually great, tough professionals. He loved being around all those talented people. His philosophy was that the best and fastest way to learn something is by observing people who already had the talent and who were better than him. That way he would have to become better at what he did in order to be at the same level with those he admired.

James was sitting on wooden bench outside the door. They would call him in when they were ready to see him auditioning. He was holding a few pages of a script they wanted him to read. It was mostly dialog but James had no idea who he would be acting with. James noticed that his hands were shaking a little but his heart rate was normal. In the end, he was just a little nervous. Not frightened. After a few minutes he heard footsteps and a man appeared from around the corner. He was wearing a black coat but he was already unbuttoning it as he walked towards him.

“Am I horribly late?” the man asked him and looked straight into James’ eyes.  
For a moment James lost his ability to speak. He was just staring right back to the eyes of this man. His eyes were blue as ice and his gaze was piercing but not in a bad way. His gaze did not make him feel uncomfortable. In fact, it was on contrary. It took James a while to recognize the man. While James was trying to get a word out of his mouth, the man took off his jacket and sat on the bench next to him.  
“I’m Paul”, said the man.  
“James”, said James and shook his hand.  
James recognized him now. He was Paul Newman. And he seemed to be awesomely nice, too.  
“You are not late," James informed him.  
“Oh, good! Do you have the script? Do you mind if I take a look?”  
James gave Paul the script and just watched as Paul read through it a couple of times. James realized he was attracted to this man. He wondered if it was even possible to be attracted to someone he had just met but then decided to believe that things like that did happen.

James tried not to stare at Paul. As a result he was looking everywhere else but his gaze always returned to him. That did not go unnoticed by Paul. Surprisingly, he did not say anything about it. He did not make fun of it or got irritated. He just answered his gaze by looking him in the eyes. Those were the moments when James could feel his heart rate rising. Having Paul close to him made him feel excited. And Paul was definitely cool with having him around because he was slowly moving towards him. When James felt Paul’s elbow touch him it felt like sparkles would have flied. James did not look at Paul but when Paul called his name, he had to look up.  
“Do you want your script back?” Paul asked.  
“Oh. Yeah, alright," James said and took the papers. “You sure you remember your lines?”  
Paul just laughed at that. He had an amazing laugh.

Soon the door was opened and a woman asked them to step inside. Inside the room there were cameras and people behind cameras and a man who was probably the director. He was holding the script. James noticed that his version of the script was full of hand-written notes. The director pointed James and Paul their positions and asked them to go through the dialog. He wanted them to say the words in different styles and in various tones. James was amazed by how well Paul could remember his lines considering that he had only read them for a few times. James thought that he should tell Paul that after the auditioning.

The director asked them over and over again to look at each other. For James auditions were like a job interview and he took them seriously so he wanted to stay cool. However, it took all he got to keep his poker face on when he was looking right into Paul’s eyes. Paul’s reactions were not exactly helping him: he could not help but laugh every time they were asked to look each other. It seemed like Paul was a little nervous. James tried to figure out if the nervousness was because of the situation or because of him. He thought it might have been a little both. Someone definitely noticed that there was something going on between them. People behind the cameras started to make fun with their obvious chemistry. James tried to act like a professional but Paul decided to play with them. In a while James decided to give up and give their little audience what they wanted.  
“Kiss me," he said to Paul. He said that as a joke but he would not have minded if Paul had decided to do as told.  
“Can’t here," Paul answered right back.  
Somehow James knew that they would later find the right time and the right place where Paul could answer his pleas.  
When the auditioning was over, James followed Paul out the door. Paul had left his jacket on the bench outside the room. He grabbed the jacket but did not put it on.  
“It’s warm outside. I won’t need this. Would you like a cup of coffee?”  
Paul said all three sentences in a row without taking keeping a pause between them. It took James a few seconds to understand that he had been asked something.  
“Um, yeah. Sure! In fact, I know a nice little coffee shop just around the corner.”

They walked to the front door and stepped outside. The air was warm and the sun was shining. They both stopped to put their sunglasses on. James found it much easier to look Paul when he had his sunglasses on. He wondered if Paul felt the same way. They did not talk much during their walk to the coffee shop. Paul was following James rather than walking on his side. James was completely fine with that.  
The coffee shop was small but it was nicely decorated and a beautiful jazz music was playing on the background. They walked to the desk and ordered two cups of coffee. When the beautiful young girl behind the desk gave them the coffee cups, they took them and picked one lounge where they chose to sit. All this time Paul had stayed very quiet. They were sitting there, sipping coffee and observing the other customers. Finally James broke the silence:  
“Do you think they’ll hire us?”  
“I don’t know. Probably not.”  
“Yeah. But I had fun!”  
“Me too.”

James would have wanted to sit next to Paul. He was physically aching for Paul’s touch. He would have wanted to reach his hand over the table to touch Paul’s hand. But he could not do that. He did not even know if Paul felt the same way but he knew something special was going on between them. James wanted to invite Paul to his home to stay for the night. He wanted to ask him about his favorite novel. He wanted to know what he ate for breakfast. Deep inside James knew he could never share his life with Paul. Had he a chance, he would have instantly chose to do that. Because he could not, he wanted to know some little detail about him. One thing that would always remind him of Paul and that would always make him smile. Then he would smile and when people would ask him what made him smile, he would not answer because he knew no one else could ever understand it.  
“Say Paul, do you have any plans for tonight?”  
“No”, Paul said with a smirk that made James feel like he was on his first date - or maybe it was because, in a way, he was.


End file.
